


Can I Get a Bump From A Road Brother?

by daisybrien



Category: Escape from Furnace - Alexander Gordon Smith, Polygon
Genre: (i cannot BELIEVE theres a tag for trucker aus), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Prison, Alternate Universe - Truckers, Arguing, Bad Driving, Car Accidents, Car Hijacking, Carjacking, Crack, Driving, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Reckless Driving, Stealing, Swearing, THEY STEAL A TRUCK, Truckers, Trucks, non-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9280034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: Zee has an plan. It goes as well as you'd expect.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by (ie. ripped off from) the McElroy Brothers' American Truck Simulator Overview. This is as much a mess as you would expect. 
> 
> Link here, because I tried html and I'm not in the mood to work it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXxfabOa_Gg&t=1055s

“This is a bad idea.”

He’s already sat himself in the passenger’s seat when he decides this, voice shaking as he looks out the front windshield out to the pavement of the dark parking lot before the two of them. The view is higher that Alex thought it would be, raised metres above the ground. They’re taller than anyone else in the lot, the roofs of the cars scattered throughout glinting in the yellow glow of the streetlights illuminating the stillness of the midnight silence, so much shorter than their own. 

“That hasn’t stopped us before, my dude,” Zee says in response. Alex sees one of the dirty soles of his sneakers haphazardly flail, kicking out to nudge him on the shoulder. There’s a bump, followed by a curse as Zee pokes his head out from under the dashboard, wires clenched in his thin, nimble fingers. “Besides, you were pretty enthusiastic about this when you first mentioned it.”

“You mean when you did,” Alex says, “since it was your idea. Your bad idea.”

“Don’t be a buzzkill,” Zee replies, groaning as his head dips below disappears again. When he speaks, his voice is muffled, words distant and broken in their flow as he becomes enraptured with his work. “Y’know this is – this is gonna be fun. We’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.”

“Yeah, with an old man’s punch buggy.”

“I’ve borrowed more than just that.”

Alex snorts at that. “Okay then,” he laughs mockingly, sarcasm hiding his nerves, “have you ever ‘borrowed’ something this big before?”

He cuts off his question with a shocked yelp as the tractor trailer wakes beneath him, growling like a massive beast; he can imagine the trail of exhaust spilling from its tailpipes now, like the smoky tendrils of a dragon’s breath, just disturbed from fitful sleep. He grips the door handle for leverage, the heavy vibration of the engine rumbling in his ears and rattling in the joints of his bones.

Zee barks out a triumphant cheer, whooping as he scrambles from under the dash and sits back comfortably in the driver’s seat. His eyes are alight with mischief and glee, the glint of white teeth shining behind a smirk. He doesn’t answer Alex with words, the determined gaze and twist of his cheeky smile enough to greedily take whatever ease Alex could cling to and promptly throw it out the window. 

He double-checks to make sure his seatbelt is on. 

Zee looks at the dashboard in front of him, fingers wiggling as he surveys the colourful array of buttons and knobs, alight in a burning orange glow against the shabby grey. He takes his careful pick of controls with outrageous confident, cranking the gearshift to set them into motion.

They lurch forward, Alex’s stomach pitching up into his throat as the groaning cage housing them begins to move. It strains against its own weight, metal complaining against metal as gears turn and shift within its inner machinations. The height is almost dizzying now, the two of them towering over the scenery of the city’s distant, dazzling nightlife. Anxiety boils in his stomach at the thought of the ant-like vehicles trailing their own reckless joyride; of the speeding rubber wheels beneath him, as big as people and so much stronger, of how far the fall to the ground would be if his inertia throws him through the window.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

The truck begins to accelerate out of its comfortable crawl, its weight urging on its acceleration. “I cannot believe we are fucking doing this!” He doesn’t realize he is yelling, squeezing his eyes shut as Zee pulls a wide turn; the truck lurches as it tilts to one side, the screech of metal sounding as it climbs onto the curb and battles a stop sign.

The sign loses. 

“Shit!” Zee shrieks; he looks back over his shoulder, the signpost twisted as easily as a paperclip. To Alex’s dismay, he puts more pressure on the gas, the deep, throaty cry of the powerful tractor growing louder with Alex’s own.

Zee is howling with laughter, pure impish merriment lightly dusting his flushed cheeks. Unlike Alex, who sits pressed back and fearful with a white-knuckled grip on the seat, Zee is leaning forward like a giddy child on a rollercoaster, gaze zipping left and right as he takes another wide turn onto the main roads.

Alex only opens his eyes at the sound of pneumatics squeaking deep in his eardrums, having gone far enough from the parking lot to be somewhere unrecognizable. Zee eases the brakes, slowly drifting left. The path from their new lane veers off the main road, winding down into the distant stretch of pavement, wide and dotted with speeding cars as it leads over the horizon.

“Don’t you dare, Zee,” Alex yells, looking over to him in horror. “Get of this ramp right now.” He tries to meet his eye, summoning the threat of a fate close to death into his glare, but Zee’s eyes are unmoving, glued to the scene outside their front window. He’s almost enraptured by the road in front of him, weaving between a set of bumpers like a bull in a china shop. 

Car horns blare like curses around them, muted by the rattle of the metal frame caging them. The sound of grating metal screeches like a vulture in their ears.

“Whoops,” Zee says, ridiculously nonchalant as he looks over his shoulder to assess the damage. “Eh, they’re okay,” he says with a chuckle and a shrug. Alex looks into the side view mirror, the reflection of his eyes wide and watery as he watches the people in the cars they shoved to curb gesticulate in their frustration, just small blurry shadows behind their own tinted windows.

“We’re men of the road now, Alex!” Zee hollers over the sound of the accelerating, noisy engine, laughter almost manic, like Alex’s terror and the thought of barreling a tractor trailer down a freeway illegally was the funniest joke he’s ever heard. 

“We didn’t need to drive a truck to prove that!” Alex screams. He could almost cry, the truck racing down the ramp, colossal and menacing and so damn dangerous that not even the thought of bailing out now could soothe his nerves. Not at this speed, not so high above the black, sandpaper roughness of the pavement, nothing but a blurry smudge beneath their titanic wheels. 

“Aw, cheer up, man,” Zee says, “think of the story you’ll get to tell after this.”

“If this doesn’t kill us, then Donovan will when he finds out,” Alex retorts. 

“He’s not our mom.”

“We don’t tell our moms that we steal cars.”

“You mean borrow.”

“Dude, just get off this fucking highway.” Alex takes a deep breath, the thrum of the wheels and the hum of the air through the vents almost soothing, the wind blowing so fast it begins to melt into white noise. “Please, before we get killed.”

“God, I know what I’m doing Alex,” Zee groans. He leans back, chuckling. Alex can see the whites of his eyes as he focuses on the road, wide as saucers at his own awed disbelief. He leans forward, chin against the steering wheel almost the the size of his torso. “This is so cool.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Alex gulps.

“Jesus, don’t piss in your seat, I’ll get off at the next ramp,” Zee says. He gives Alex a playful punch, trying to get the boy’s tense, wiry muscles to relax, to no avail. “Just let a dude enjoy the taste of American freedom for a bit.”

“American?!” Alex spits; the tension in his body relaxes at this, and he finds himself laughing the hardest he has since the beginning of the night.

“Can’t a dude be homesick for his home’s open road, the wind through his hair as he traverses the sparkling desert of the land of freedom?” Zee strains his accent, and Alex’s eyes are beginning to water, his ribs aching with each breath, keeling over in his seat. “This is just a small taste of the true-blooded American experience, my dear friend, of being a man and brother of the road.

“Although driving on the left side of the road is ruining that illusion,” he muses. He must feel Alex’s horrified glare in his temple, because he quickly chimes, “Kidding! I’m kidding.”

“Don’t even joke,” Alex says. “Don’t. You’re going to kill us enough as it is.”

“You have no faith in your road brother,” Zee says dejectedly. He presses down on the gas, the engine revving and ebbing, like a threatened dog’s warning growl flowing into a biting bark. Alex’s heart jumps in his chest as the truck leaps forward, graceful despite its bulking size. A yelp slips from his throat, making Zee giggle.

“Will you stop?” Alex says the third time Zee pumps the gas, each swell a staccato beat shoving his back, the seat pushing him forward with its inertia. A sign zips over their heads, letters a bold and welcome relief. “Just get off at the next ramp, for the love of all that is holy.”

“It’s a shame neither of us love holiness, let alone practice it,” Zee snickers. He makes no move to switch lanes as they begin to split, Alex’s one path to safety slowly growing farther out of reach.

“You said you would!”

“God, Alex, where’s your sense of freedom?”

“You’re the worst fucking Yank I’ve ever met, I hope you know that,” Alex spits.

“You don’t mean that, you love me,” Zee says, giving Alex a cheeky grin. He only stares back, face stiff as stone as he watches the grin on Zee’s face slowly falter. There’s no real hurt in his eyes, only a cold annoyance as he returns Alex’s glare.

Something in his face changes; he catches the grin that had tried to slip from him, twisting up menacingly like the gnarled branches of a tree. He squints at Alex, the blue of his eyes sparkling with conniving contemplation and teeth glinting, bared between lips thinned by a hidden grimace. 

“Alright,” Zee says. He looks out to the road. Alex nervously looks at him from the corner of his eye, watching as the line between lanes split into two, then the pavement. “I’ll grab this exit.”

He jerks the steering wheel to the left.

The world is a smear of colour and cacophony around them. Alex is deafened by his own shriek, curses and pleas garbled in his terror. There’s a sound of something snapping to a halt as the wheel in Zee’s grip locks, the blare of car horns echoing in a symphony of long melodies and sharp repeating beats. He sees the road ahead shift from its familiar grey to the speckled greens and browns of the roadside shoulder onto unpaved ground. 

“’Scusi, ‘scusi!” Zee chirps, muffled swears and grunts cushioning between his words as the truck jumps the bump of the curve. Invisible hands pull the two of them like marionette puppets, forcing them to lean left, their limbs flailing as their heads hit the roof of the cabin.

The pit of Alex’s stomach drops to his feet with him, body bouncing as the truck dips downward, nose first over the lip of the barrier. Their puppet strings yank them forward, the two of them strangled by the noose of the seatbelt holding them in place as the truck grinds to a halt.

Alex waits a beat before he lets himself breathe a sigh of relief, finally still, finally off the road. He’s glad he does; Zee begins to gun the engine again, the smell of burning rubber foul in the air as the wheels screech beneath them, scrambling for purchase they can’t maintain.

“Well, this isn’t good,” Zee says. Alex only groans, leaning forward to drop his head against the dashboard.

“I hate you, Zee.”

“We just need a bump, is all,” Zee shrugs. Alex doesn’t watch him look at his mirrors, or him turning to see the fellow tractor trailers on the road ignore them as they rumble by; his eyes stay glued to the floormat under his feet.

“I fucking hate you, Zee,” Alex mumbles weakly. His teeth chatter as he trembles, biting back the bile that threatens to rise out of his throat. “I hate you.”

“We’ll be fine,” Zee says, frustration starting to bleed into his tone. “God, none of these assholes are even willing to help.”

“I can’t believe we did this.”

“Can I get a bump or not?”

“We crashed a goddamn truck.” 

Zee clicks his tongue, huffing stubbornly. “Jackasses,” he mutters. He hammers the horn, the truck calling out in a deep, desperate cry; a mechanical click sounds quietly after it as he unlocks the doors.

“Well, that was fun while it lasted!” he says. “Guess we’re walking home.” He opens the door, hopping down onto the island of gravel and grass that he had just marooned them on. Alex can only groan in response, refusing to move.

“You didn’t even use your blinker.”


End file.
